The present invention in its several aspects presented herein is in the area of telephone communication in the broadest sense; that is, including all multimedia communication aspects of intelligent networks, call-center technology including computer-telephony integration (CTI), and Internet protocol telephony networks and related technology.
Telephone is one of the most widely used communication equipments in the world. At first, it was merely a convenient tool to allow people to communicate while they are physically separated. Recently, many companies use telephones to market products and services, provide technical supports to consumer products, allow customers to access their own financial data, etc. Thus, telephone is becoming a major business and marketing tool.
In order to more effectively use telephone for business and marketing purposes, call centers have been developed. In a call center, a large number of agents handle telephone communication with customers. The matching of calls between customers and agents is typically performed by software. A simple example is used here to describe a few of the many advantages of using call centers. When a call is made to a call center, the telephone number of the calling line is typically made available to the call center by a telephone carrier. Based on this telephone number, the software in the call center can access a database server to obtain information about the customer who has been assigned that phone number. The software can now route the call to an agent who can best handle the call based on predefined criteria (e.g., language skill, knowledge of products the customer bought, etc.). The software immediately transfers relevant information to a computer screen used by the agent. Thus, the agent can gain valuable information about the customer prior to receiving the call. As a result, the agent can more effectively handle the telephone transaction.
It can be seen from the above example that the enabling technology requires a combination of telephone switching and computer information processing technologies. The term commonly used for this combined technology is computer-telephony-integration (CTI).
In recent years, advances in computer technology and telephony equipment and infrastructure as well has provided many opportunities for improving telephone service. Similarly, development of the information and data network known as the Internet together with advances in computer hardware and software has led to a new multi-media telephone system known in the art as Internet protocol network telephony (IPNT). In IPNT as well as in the older intelligent and CTI-enhanced telephony systems, both privately and publicly switched, it is desirable to handle more calls faster and to provide improved service in every way, including such improvements as video calls and conferencing.
In various embodiments and aspects of the present invention described in enabling detail below, new and enhanced apparatus and methods are provided for improving telephony systems and service.
In a preferred embodiment of the present invention a system for routing an electronic mail (e-mail) to one of a plurality of agents in an Internet Protocol Network Telephony call center is provided, each of the agents having a specific skill set from a variety of possible skill sets, the system comprising an e-mail server adapted to receive the e-mail from a sender; an information extractor for extracting information from the e-mail; a router; and a database accessible to the router and storing skill sets of the agents. The router selects the one of a plurality of agents by matching stored information about the specific skill sets with portions of extracted information from the e-mail.
In some embodiments a statistics server (stat-server) records activities of the call center, and the routing performed by the router further uses the recorded activity in the stat-server. Also in some embodiments routing of e-mails to selected agents is load-balanced based on recorded activity stored in the stat-server. An overload threshold may set for number of e-mails to be routed, and senders of e-mails are then notified of a possible delay when the threshold is exceeded.
In some other embodiments the database further stores information on senders of e-mails, and routing performed by the router further uses the stored information on senders of e-mails. The database may also store information about prior relationships of agents and e-mail senders, and the router uses the relationship information in making routing decisions as well. In an alternative embodiment a time limit for response to e-mails by the agents is set, and e-mails not answered within the time limit are rerouted to other agents. In other embodiments the information extractor comprises plural and selectable extraction algorithms. One of the extraction algorithms may include a parser, and the one of the extraction algorithms uses the parser to search for keywords in the e-mail.
The system provided by the several embodiments of the present invention allows e-mails to be addressed for service to a single entity, and then to be distributed to agents for service who are qualified by particular skills to respond to the need of the client sending the e-mail.